COUNCIL EYE ON SITE SALE

15 November 2005

As parents of children at a Bishop Gore feeder school, we support 100 per cent the fight by parents from both schools against the closure of Dylan Thomas school and the transfer of its pupils to Bishop Gore (Post, November 9).

In particular, the proposal for a two-year transitional period, during which both sites will be open, with year six and seven Bishop Gore pupils being taught at Cockett, is so ill-thought out that it resembles something drafted on the back of an envelope.

Parents should be asking the council these questions:

How can the present curriculum be delivered on two sites, and in two very different schools?

What will be the effect on activities such as sport, orchestras and choirs?

How will pupils get to school?

The result will be traffic gridlock, or, if there is no direct bus route, pupils going into the city centre and out again twice a day. Families with children at both sites will be split up.

Worst of all, we are not even being consulted.

The council's "consultation" means parents of pupils currently at Bishop Gore, but whose children may have left by the time these arrangements kick in, are being consulted, but parents of children in feeder schools, who will be affected, are being excluded from meetings.

This bizarre spectacle makes a mockery of local democracy and surely constitutes a breach of the Assembly Government's consultation policy.

Could it be that this administration is motivated more by the potential value of the site of Dylan Thomas school than the educational needs of our children?

Nick Davies and Brigid Haines, Glanbrydan Avenue, Uplands, Swansea